Interim president given permanent position

The University of Cincinnati has officially named Santa Ono as its new president in a unanimous approval by the UC Board of Trustees today.

Ono, who joined UC's staff in 2010, was UC's interim president since Aug. 21, when former President Greg Williams abruptly resigned due to “personal reasons.” Previously, Ono served as UC's provost.

“I am honored to serve as the 28th president of the University of
Cincinnati,” Ono said in a statement. “I am not a new face on campus, but in many ways,
the fact that I have been a part of the UC family for two years now
makes today even more special for me. I am so very fortunate to be asked
to serve in this capacity.”

Williams' retirement came with some controversy. After he resigned, the UC Board of Trustees gave Williams a $1.3 million severance package. The package was criticized by Ohio Rep. Connie Pillich, a Cincinnati Democrat who said in a statement, “I was
disappointed to learn that the University agreed to continue paying
former President Greg Williams a sum of $1.3 million over the next two
years, considering the former president abruptly resigned six days
before classes were to start this fall. It is disheartening to see such
a great deal of public money spent in a manner that is inconsistent
with the financial realities many colleges, students, and families face
in the current economy. … The University’s tuition increase of 3.5
percent this year means students and families must incur a greater
financial burden at a time when many are struggling to make ends meet.
Certainly Mr. Williams’ payday will weigh on the minds of these
students and parents, leaving them to wonder, ‘Does this kind of
decision result in tuition and fee increases?’”

There was also some controversy involving The Cincinnati Enquirer. The newspaper's publisher and president, Margaret Buchanan, was serving on the UC Board of Trustees when Greg Williams stepped down, but The Enquirer failed to mention asking her about the resignation — an omission that raised questions for Jim Romenesko, a popular journalism blogger. In at least six follow-up stories, the newspaper also failed to mention Buchanan's connection to UC. Buchanan later resigned from the UC Board of Trustees to end the potential impression of a conflict of interest.

Plan also cuts taxes for businesses, restores some education funding

In a party line 23-10 vote today, the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate approved a $61 billion budget plan for fiscal years
2014 and 2015 that takes multiple measures against legal
abortions, aims to cut taxes for small businesses and partly restores education funding cut in the previous 2012-2013 budget.

The budget plan gives a large amount of attention to
social issues, particularly abortion. Most recently, the Ohio Senate added an amendment that could be used by the director of the Ohio Department of Health to close down abortion clinics.

The amendment bans abortion clinics from establishing transfer agreements with public hospitals, forcing the clinics to make such agreements with private hospitals,
which are often religious and could refuse to deal with abortion clinics. Under the amendment, if the clinics can’t reach a transfer agreement, the state health director is given the power to shut them down.

Abortion rights groups claim the amendment will likely be used to shut down abortion clinics or force them to dissolve their abortion services.

The bill also makes changes to family services funding
that effectively defund Planned Parenthood, a family planning services
provider that is often criticized by conservatives for offering abortion
services, even though it does so exclusively through private donations.

The bill also redirects some federal Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families funds to crisis pregnancy centers, which
effectively act as the anti-abortion alternative to comprehensive family
planning service providers like Planned Parenthood.

The changes continue a conservative push on social issues that began in the Ohio House budget (“The Chastity Bunch,” issue of April 24).

Supporters praise the bill for “protecting life” and promoting “chastity” and “abstinence,” but critics are pushing back.

“Today the Ohio Senate turned its back on the health care needs of Ohio’s women and paved the way for family planning centers and abortion clinics to be closed across the state. If Gov. (John) Kasich doesn’t remove these provisions from the budget, the unintended pregnancy rate will rise, cancer will go undetected and women who need abortion care will not have safe, legal facilities to turn to in some communities,” said
Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, in a
statement. “This budget will put the lives of thousands of Ohio women at risk if Gov. Kasich fails to line-item veto these dangerous measures.”

The Ohio Senate plan also scraps Ohio House plans to
cut income taxes for all Ohioans by 7 percent and instead aims to cut
taxes for small businesses by 50 percent.

Republicans claim the tax cut will help small businesses,
which they call the state’s “job creators.” But conservative and liberal
groups have criticized the plan.

In an analysis, Policy Matters Ohio,
a left-leaning policy think tank, claimed the tax cut will
inadvertently benefit “affluent passive investors” and “partners in law
firms and other partnerships.”

Given that, Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters, says the plan will do little for Ohio’s economy.

“The fastest growing small businesses are not making money
because they’re investing heavily in their operations — in marketing,
research and sales,” Schiller says. “So if they’re making anything,
they’re investing it by and large in the business, so they’re not likely
to be able to benefit very much from this.”

He adds, “Meanwhile, you’re going to have passive
investors who have no role in adding employees and partners in law
firms, architecture firms, accounting firms and other kinds of
professional organizations who will personally benefit from this in a
way that I think is unlikely to generate more employment.”

Instead of focusing on tax cuts, Schiller argues the state
should be increasing direct investments, particularly in education
and human services.

“This is bad policy, and many supporters are errantly
pushing it under the guise of putting more money in the hands of
‘job-creators.’ But this is based on a flawed understanding of what
creates jobs,” wrote Scott Drenkard of the Tax Foundation. “The
businesses that actually create jobs are not small businesses or big
businesses; they are businesses that are growing. And that type of
business is virtually impossible to target with a tax incentive.”

The budget plan restores about $717 million in
education funding, but that’s not enough to outweigh the $1.8 billion in education funding
that was cut in the 2012-2013 budget, which Kasich and the
Republican-controlled legislature approved in 2011.

The education funding increases will disproportionately favor the state’s property-wealthiest districts —
effectively giving the biggest funding increases to school districts
that can already afford to raise more money by leveraging high local
property values.

Stephen Dyer, an education policy fellow at the left-leaning Innovation Ohio, captured the disproportionate funding increases in chart form in a blog post:

The chart shows only 15 percent of funding increases will go to the property-poorest one-third of school districts, while a vast majority of the increases will go to the property-wealthiest one-third.

Health care advocates were also disappointed to see the
Ohio Senate pass on a federally funded Medicaid expansion, which would
allow anyone at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level —
$15,856 for a single-person household and $32,499 for a family of four — to enroll in the government-backed health care program.

Kasich proposed expanding Medicaid in his original budget plan (“Smoke and Mirrors,” issue of Feb. 20), but Ohio legislators are skeptical of the expansion’s consequences.

As part of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), the
Medicaid expansion would be fully financed by the federal government for
the first three years. After that, federal payments would be phased
down to capture 90 percent of the expansion, where federal funding would
permanently remain.

Republican legislators, backed by Republican State
Treasurer Josh Mandel, are skeptical the federal government can afford
the expansion. There’s no historical precedent for the federal
government failing to meet its obligations to Medicaid, but
Republican legislators argue there’s also no historical precedent for
the federal government backing such large Medicaid expansions across the
nation.

The budget also fails to restore local government funding cuts that have been carried out during Kasich’s time in office. In comparison to fiscal years 2010 and 2011, local governments are receiving about 50 percent less aid from the state, leading to $22.2 million less funds for Cincinnati on an annual basis (“Enemy of the State,” issue of March 20).

When asked to explain the various cuts to education and local government funding in the 2012-2013 budget, Kasich spokesperson Rob Nichols told CityBeat in September 2012, “The reality is we walked into an $8 billion budget deficit. … We had to fix that.”

The Ohio legislature and Kasich must agree on a budget plan in time for a June 30 deadline.

Millennials are nimble, but seek gratification

A survey of more than 1,000 technology experts, critics and students has revealed a split about how the Internet and other technological advances are affecting “Generation Y.”

The Pew Research Center’s survey, released today, found a majority of respondents believed the technology would create a generation of nimble decision-makers, while almost as many feared it would cause young people to become easily distracted and lack deep thinking skills.

Wait. What were we talking about?

The survey found 55 percent of respondents agreed with a statement that “in 2020 the brains of young people would be ‘wired’ differently from those over 35, with good results for finding answers quickly and without shortcomings in their mental processes."

But it also found 45 percent who agreed with a second statement “in 2020 young technology users would be easily distracted, would lack deep thinking skills and would thirst only for instant gratification.”

“A number of the survey respondents argued that it is vital to reform education and emphasize digital literacy,” a Pew summary stated. “A notable number expressed concerns that trends are leading to a future in which most people are shallow consumers of information, and some mentioned George Orwell’s 1984 or expressed their fears of control by powerful interests in an age of entertaining distractions.”

Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, are generally considered to be composed of people born between the late 1970s and the early '90s.

Pew’s online survey questioned 1,021 people involved with technology and was conducted from Aug. 28 to Oct. 31, 2011, as part of Pew's ongoing project on the Internet and American life.

Respondents included industry insiders like Bruce Nordman, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Hal Varian, Google's top economist, along with university and high school students.

Ohio State Board of Education President Debe Terhar posted an image
of Adolf Hitler on Facebook that said, “Never forget what this tyrant
said: ‘To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.’ — Adolf Hitler.”
But the Cincinnati Republican, who was referencing President Barack
Obama’s gun control proposals, now insists she was not comparing Obama
to Hitler. It’s pretty obvious she was, though.

Cincinnati’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate
dropped to 6.7 percent in December, down from 6.9 percent in November.
The drop is largely attributed to a decrease in the civilian labor force,
which could imply less people are looking for work or seasonal changes
are having an impact. Whatever the case, the amount of people who are
employed and unemployed both dropped. Hamilton County’s seasonally
unadjusted unemployment rate dropped to 6.2 percent in December, down
from 6.4 percent in November, but that drop was also attributed to a declining labor
force or seasonal factors. Greater Cincinnati’s seasonally unadjusted
unemployment rate was unchanged from 6.4 percent, despite 2,600 less
people working. In comparison, Ohio’s seasonally unadjusted
rate was 6.6 percent in December, up from 6.5 percent in November, and
the U.S. rate was 7.6 percent, up from 7.4 percent.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, suggested the Dollar-for-Dollar
Deficit Reduction Act. The plan requires debt ceiling increases to be
matched by an equal amount of spending cuts. Increasing the debt ceiling
is essentially Congress agreeing to pay its bills. During the budget
process and while passing other legislation, Congress agrees to a
certain amount of spending. Increasing the debt ceiling just makes it
possible for the president to pay those bills, even if it means
surpassing a set debt level. If the debt ceiling isn't raised by May 18,
the United States will default on its debts, plunging the country into
depression. But the threat of destroying the U.S. economy has not
stopped Republicans from using the debt ceiling as a negotiation tool to
get the spending cuts they so badly want.

Public employees are avoiding changes to Ohio’s public pension system
by retiring before the changes kick in. The changes make it so any teacher who
retires before July 1 will get a 2 percent cost of living increase to
their pensions in 2015. Anyone who retires after July 1 will not get the
increase until 2018. After that, retirees will get a pension increase
every five years. Experts are also expecting a rush of retirees in 2015,
when age and years-of-service requirements for full benefits are set to
gradually rise.

A new report found Ohio’s graduation rate is still improving.
The U.S. Department of Education report found the state’s graduation
rate was 81.4 percent in the 2009-10 school year, higher than the
nation’s rate of 78.2 percent, and an increase from 78.7 percent rate in
the 2006-2007 school year.

A study found a link between hourly workers at Hamilton County’s Fernald Feed Materials Production Center and intestinal cancer.

Tougher tests seek to prepare students for college, careers

The Ohio Graduation Tests will soon be no more. The
Ohio Department of Education (ODE) and Board of Regents have agreed to
establish tougher
tests with a focus on preparing students for college and beyond.

Michael Sawyers, acting superintendent for ODE, praised
the agreement in a statement: “This is a major step forward in our
reform efforts to ensure all Ohio students have the knowledge and skills
necessary to leave school remediation-free and ready for their
post-secondary experience in higher education or workforce training.”

Private companies will soon be able to
compete for a contract to design and help implement the new
standardized tests. The tests are expected to kick in during the
2014-2015 school year, but state officials acknowledge they could be implemented in time for the 2013-2014 school year if competitive bidding goes well and funding is sufficient. Once the tests are active, high school sophomores will take end-of-year tests to gauge
college and career readiness. The tests will cover English, algebra,
geometry, biology, physical science, American history and American
government.

The reform is part of a bigger effort that reworks Ohio’s education system with higher standards for schools and
students. As part of the broader changes, Ohio adopted the Common Core State Standards,
which are a commitment to raise the bar on English and math standards
for grades K-12.

The overall idea behind the reform has relatively bipartisan support, says Kelsey Bergfeld, a
legislative service commission fellow for Ohio Sen. Tom Sawyer.
Sawyer, a Democrat, is the ranking minority member in the Ohio Senate’s
Education Committee.

The problem is in the details — specifically, the details
in a new school report card system established by HB 555, which will be voted on in the Ohio House
next week. Bergfeld says the current proposal by Ohio Republicans is
too harsh, which could make schools look worse than they are in reality.
That problem could be exacerbated by the new tests, she says: If the new tests are too tough, they could make schools and students look bad “because grades
are going to drop.”

An early simulation of tougher report card standards in May
found Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) would fall under the new system.
The simulation showed CPS would drop from the second-best rating of
“Effective” under the current system to a D-, with 23 schools flunking
but Walnut Hills High School retaining its top mark with an A.

Interim report highlights attendance scrubbing in a minority of school districts

The state auditor today criticized both the Ohio Department of
Education (ODE) and a handful of school districts in an interim
report. The report, which will be finalized in the coming months as the investigation is completed, gave some early findings for the ongoing investigation into attendance scrubbing, the
practice of “removing students from enrollment without lawful reason.”

Dave Yost, Ohio’s state auditor, has been investigating
claims that schools are scrubbing attendance data for
better results in Ohio’s school report card, which grades schools and
school districts around the state. The grading process helps establish policies for
different schools, such as funding needs and whether they require local or state intervention.

The early
results of the investigation, which began after Lockland Schools in
Hamilton County was caught reporting fraudulent data, found a
fundamental conflict of interest in a system in which schools are “on
the honor system” to report their own data.

“The current system relies upon local schools and school
districts — but these are the very entities that are interested in the
outcome of the accountability measures,” the report said, before
labeling the setup “a classic conflict of interest.”

The report advised the state government to reform ODE to
introduce “independent oversight.” Specifically, Yost asked for
oversight to be transferred to “an independent agency or commission
appointed by the General Assembly” instead of relying on schools to be
honest. This oversight should be conducted throughout the year, not just
at the end of the school year like it's done today, according to
the report.

The state auditor’s report also asked ODE to develop
better methods for tracking students. In particular, the report suggested
using SSIDs — ID numbers that are given to students in the Ohio’s
school database — to track all withdrawals and transfers for students.

But those were only a few of the many suggestions. The report laid out other proposals: Set clear attendance rules for school
boards, provide due process to students being kicked out for poor
attendance, require stricter attendance records at each school, stop
providing school report card data early, create a centralized source or
manual for accountability resources and establish a statewide student
information system with clearer uniform rules and standards.

John Charlton, spokesperson for ODE, says the state will
look into enforcing “additional safeguards.” He says ODE already
“upgraded” EMIS, which is the system used by schools to report data,
this year, but more is coming.

“We’ve been cooperative with the auditor’s office, and
we’ve established a productive working relationship about his inquiry,”
he says. “We’ll take the input that’s provided from the auditor’s office
into consideration when we make upgrades for next year’s (EMIS)
manual.”

But the report did not just blame ODE and the state
government for failures. It also singled out a few school districts with
evidence of school scrubbing. Columbus City School District, Toledo
City School District, Cleveland Municipal School District, Marion City
School District and Campbell City School District were the main
offenders. Other school districts were found to have errors but no scrubbing.

“We’re actually encouraged but not surprised that this
interim report shows that most Ohio schools and districts that have been
visited to date have been following the rules for reporting data to the
state,” Charlton says.

Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) was partially investigated as part of the auditor's interim report, but results for CPS were found to be “indeterminate” as the school district finishes gathering all its data.

A local music teacher says Cincinnati
Hills Christian Academy offered him a job and then rescinded the
offer after asking him if he is gay. Jonathan Zeng says he went
through the school's extensive interview process, was offered a
position and then called back in for a discussion about religious
questions in his application, during which he was asked directly if
he is gay. Zeng says he asked why such information was pertinent, and
an administrator said it was school policy not to employ teachers who
are gay because they work with children and something about the
sanctity of marriage. When contacted by local media CHCA released the
following statement:

CHCA keeps confidential all matters
discussed within a candidate's interview. We're looking into this
matter, although the initial information we have seen contains
inaccuracies. We will not be discussing individual hiring decisions
or interviews.

As expected, the pay equity bill failed along party lines,
52-47, short of the required 60-vote threshold. But for majority
Democrats, passage wasn't the only point. The debate itself was aimed
at putting Republicans on the defensive on yet another women's issue,
this one overtly economic after a government report showing
slower-than-expected job growth.

"It is incredibly disappointing that in this make-or-break
moment for the middle class, Senate Republicans put partisan politics
ahead of American women and their families," Obama said in a
statement after the vote.

Update: This blog incorrectly said Doug Preisse is the chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party. He is the chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party.

“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the
voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American —
voter-turnout machine,” Doug Preisse, chairman of the Franklin
County Republican Party, told The Columbus Dispatch
in an email over the weekend. The admission to outright racism came at
the height of a controversy regarding weekend voting in Montgomery
County. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is trying to enforce uniform
in-person early voting hours with no weekend voting across the state to
avoid any discrepancies that caused a previous controversy, but county
Democrats in Dayton wanted to have weekend voting anyway. When county
Democrats refused to back down in a Board of Elections meeting, Husted,
the state official who is supposed to empower voters as much as
possible, suspended them from the Board. The move sparked
criticism from state Democrats, which eventually led to Preisse’s admission to playing racial politics.

Taxpayers could be paying $300,000 so county officials can
avoid a tough decision. The move would preserve the property tax
rollback and let the county hold off on making a payment on the stadiums
this fiscal year. Two out of three county commissioners told the Enquirer they like the idea.

Schools in the Greater Cincinnati area seem to be using
different grading scales. The disparity could put some students in a
worse spot when applying to college.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is suing a Cincinnati man over a Craigslist scam.

The Greater Cincinnati area could soon host more film, television and video game production thanks to new tax incentives.

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland could be making an
appearance at the Democratic national convention. The convention is a
time for parties to show off their new candidates and party platforms.

Republican senatorial candidate Todd Akin of Missouri told KTVI-TV,
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape]
is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to
try to shut that whole thing down.” The extremely offensive, factually
incorrect comment was quickly picked up by media outlets, and the
senatorial candidate is now saying he “misspoke.” But misspeaking typically means
messing up one or two words. Misspeaking does not mean making a clearly
spoken argument with a very clear point.

Study filters spending on poverty and other special needs to allow better comparisons

Urban schools spend considerably less on basic education for a typical student
than previously assumed after accounting for miscellaneous expenditures related to poverty, according to a Nov. 19 report from three school advocacy
groups.

If it’s accepted by state officials and taxpayers, the
report could give way to a reorientation of how school funds are
allocated in Ohio — perhaps with a more favorable approach to urban
and rural school districts.

The report’s formula acknowledges that some students, particularly those in poverty, take more resources to educate, typically to make up for external factors that depress academic performance. After those higher costs are taken into account, the report calculates how much money schools have left over for a typical student.

“If under-funded, districts with concentrations of poverty
will not have the resources left over for the educational opportunities
we want to see for all students,” said Howard Fleeter, the report’s
author, in a statement.

The report finds urban school districts like Cincinnati
Public Schools (CPS) and Lockland Schools spend considerably less on basic education for a typical student than wealthy suburban school districts like
Indian Hill Schools and Sycamore Community Schools.

After weighing spending on poverty and other miscellaneous programs, major urban school
districts lose more than 39 percent in per-pupil education
spending and poor rural school districts lose nearly 24 percent, while
wealthy suburban schools lose slightly more than 14 percent.

Following the deductions, CPS drops from a pre-weighted rank of
No. 17 most per-pupil funding out of 605 school districts in the state
to No. 55. Lockland Schools falls from No. 64 to No. 234.

The report similarly drops New Miami Schools, a poor rural district in Butler County, from No. 327 to No. 588.

Indian Hill actually gains in overall state rankings,
going from No. 11 to No. 4. Sycamore Community Schools also rise from
No. 22 to No. 14.

The Ohio School Boards Association, the Buckeye
Association of School Administrators and the Ohio Association of School
Business Officials commissioned the report through the Education Tax
Policy Institute, an Ohio-based group of researchers and analysts.

In desperate need to bolster his low popularity numbers, Gov. John Kasich visited Cincinnati Tuesday to praise a deal that allows a local company to expand downtown and add jobs. Dunnhumby USA, a retail branding firm, will move from Third Street to a long vacant site at Fifth and Race streets, where it will build a new complex and add 550 jobs. Dunnhumby is getting the maximum 15 years of state Job Creation tax credits to help with the move.

The head of faculty at Xavier University is questioning the college president's abrupt, unilateral decision to stop offering birth control coverage in insurance for faculty and staff. Shannon Byrne, faculty committee chair, says President Michael J. Graham’s announcement Monday might violate XU's own rules about how such decisions can be made. She is scheduling a meeting April 12 so faculty can discuss the situation and decide how to respond.

ARTIMIS signs are supposed to alert motorists to traffic congestion and missing persons, but area residents have said they've noticed a lot of them don't work. As a result, transportation officials say 29 malfunctioning ARTIMIS signs will be replaced as part of upcoming construction projects on Interstates 471 and 275. All of the upgrades will be completed by July.

A Waynesville High School student is suing the school district for preventing him from wearing a T-shirt to class that depicted a pro-gay message. Maverick Couch wants to wear the shirt, which states “Jesus is not a homophobe,” to school on April 20 to show support for the Day of Silence, a national event that draws attention to the silencing of gay and lesbian students through bullying. School officials, however, initially told Couch the shirt was disruptive and later that it was too religious. Now they allege it violates rules prohibiting clothing that is “sexual in nature,” which Couch's attorney said is “absurd.”

Yahoo! Sports has released the rankings of Major League teams with the most players claimed in fantasy baseball leagues, and some Reds are among the sought-after stars. The Yankees and Rangers tied for the top spot as most popular on Yahoo!. Both teams have 13 players owned in at least 50 percent of Yahoo! Leagues. But the Reds also make a good showing, with seven players owned in at least 50 percent of the fantasy leagues.

In news elsewhere, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney left his rival, Rick Santorum, in the dust Tuesday. Romney won all three primaries that were held — in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia — and emerged with substantial gains in delegates.

Despite widespread opinion to the contrary, a private investigator alleges in a new book that O.J. Simpson didn't murder his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, in 1994. Instead, William C. Dear said his inquiry revealed that O.J. was covering up for the real culprit: Jason Simpson, O.J.'s son from his first marriage. Dear said he discovered a knife in a storage unit that was rented by Jason that he believes is the murder weapon, along with a forged time card from the night of the killings. Dear alleges that Jason Simpson was working as a chef in a Beverly Hills restaurant that day and had put together a special meal for the family. Brown didn't attend, however, angering him. The P.I. said Jason was on probation for assaulting his previous employer with a knife and has spent time in a psychiatric unit.

If you're an evangelical Christian, you might want to skip this next item. A new medical study finds that older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience — in other words, are “born again” — are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the part of the brain critical to learning and memory. Researchers asked 268 people, ages 58 to 84, about their religious affiliation, spiritual practices and life-changing religious experiences. Over the course of two to eight years, changes to the hippocampus were monitored using MRI scans. The researchers suggested that stress over holding religious beliefs that fall outside of the mainstream may help explain the findings. Or they're just stupid.

A major Chinese analyst said the senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, and believes the United States is a declining power that is trying to disrupt China's economic and military growth. Wang Jisi revealed his findings in a monograph published this week by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Hafiz Saeed, the leader of a Pakistan-based group blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, has demanded proof after the United States announced a $10 million bounty on his head. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Saeed said the U.S. action was prompted by his organizing rallies against the reopening of military supply lines through Pakistan to NATO forces in Afghanistan.